Election Poems: Three is a Magic Number

Election Poems is a listening project. The poems you will read in this series document and respond to the politicized non-dialogue that seems to have invaded all forms of conversation these days, and the gas balloon of portent that’s escaping the seams. This is also a personal project. The content comes exclusively from my own listening experience, meaning conversations that people have had with me or things they have said in my presence, for better or worse, from the 2008 election cycle to the present. The results are not always easy to digest, and many of the poems deal with painful, disturbing, or incendiary ideas that have not gone away, as our current election season so aptly reminds us. But to be clear, the project is not about politicians, pundits, or campaigns, or the rhetorical moves they make in order to earn a vote, or tell the story of a given election. It is about everyone who is not running for office, and who/how we are to each other in an era where politics infuses everything.

For more information about this series and its concept, check out the introductory post. Previous poems can also be found on the series page. A new installment and image will appear every Tuesday through November 2016 (one week post-election), featuring poems from throughout the project, as well as a new one written specifically for the current week. The poems are titled by number, but will not appear in order.

75

Get some compassion for the right people

43

No social security card evidence
You let me leave my hand there a little too long evidence
Cell phones and fat babies evidence
Loud girls at the pool evidence
Lost weekend evidence
People who make three payments of $19.99 plus shipping and handling evidence
They are who we thought they were evidence
Bus riding evidence
Food stamp grocery store checkout evidence
No evidence of an actual problem evidence
My street is not for people I don’t recognize evidence
Confederate flag tube top evidence
Fear of compliance evidence
Cheer squad summer camp spirit stick evidence
Powdered formula and boxes of macaroni from a hot warehouse evidence
Alleged free dresses from some guy waiting for you just past the deserted storefront down the long alley evidence
Knows what a gallon of milk should cost evidence
Something on their heads that’s not a baseball cap evidence
Doing what he wants while she’s unconscious evidence
Rechecking your purse in the shopping cart after I stood next to you in line evidence
All those childless people who hate children evidence
The “have a good one” he only gives certain customers evidence
This neighborhood belongs to the highest bidder now evidence
Two forms of identification please evidence
Winding the key you left in my back evidence

54

He speaks for him, and they speak for me
Together we are a holy trinity of correct
Us three, you zero

This foxy grace squad is never wrong, never will be
About anything, ever, in perpetuity
Eternity plus infinity

Try to complicate it, but these are the facts
Because he believes, I believe him
Because I believe, his enemies are mine

No one else has the unpublished number, and calls it on my behalf
No one else hears the instructions so clearly, and has the cauliflower ear to prove it
No one else has the prophecy decoder ring, and knows how to use it

Only him
With he
Plus me

Three is a magic number

Election Poems: Three is a Magic Number was last modified: September 28th, 2016 by Robin Myrick

Robin Myrick is a writer, visual artist, educator, and instigator currently based in Dallas, Texas. She's also a reformed journalist (now tucked away in academia) who once scribbled at length about music, film, and pop culture for upstanding alt weeklies and newspapers across the South, as well the occasional corporate blowhole. Her more recent work has appeared in fine places such as Semigloss, [out of nothing], and Uno Kudo. You can also find her in the anthologies Any Way You Like 'Em, Chronometry, and You've Probably Read This Before.